When Life Doesn't Hand You Cream of Tartar

You know that old saying: "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade?" Well, this is is the backward approach to the same lesson:

Here you see: Margaret and me making "bickets" yesterday morning from our old tried and true Fanny Farmer cookbook recipe, except we had a problem: we were plum out of shortening, milk, and cream of tartar. But (HA!) we didn't let that stop us; we made them, anyway!

 

How: for milk, we substituted heavy whipping cream; for shortening, we substituted butter; for cream of tartar, we substituted lemon juice (1 tsp lemon juice per every 1/2 tsp cream of tartar*).

Results:  Mmm-baby good, nice flaky bickets!

Moral of story: Maybe life isn't handing you lemons, but if it isn't exactly handing you what you think you need, you certainly can figure out how to make do with what you have. You may find out it's better anyway -- and you have braggin' rights for ingenuity! 😊

* All of this, of course, begs the question: Why on earth is this ingredient called Cream of Tartar? It's not a cream of any kind, and it isn't Turkish in origin -- so, what on earth...?

I looked it up. (Are you shocked?) 😉

What it is: Cream of Tartar is the residue found in casks of wine. (No, really!) The tartar part of the word comes from tartre, a word arguably of Old French origin, meaning "a deposit." (Think tartar on teeth, also a deposit of a kind! 😬) Cream of Tartar's scientific moniker, though, is potassium bitartrate, which is an acid salt formed during grape fermentation. Corked wine bottles, fresh grape juice and fresh jams and jellies form crystals called "wine diamonds" when stored below 50 degrees. The crude form of  these wine diamonds found in filtered wine is called beeswing (there's another crazy etymology to wonder about!). But here's the pancake (as Sr. E would say): the purified form of beeswing is called the "cream" -- it is the cream (or the best of) of the wine barrel deposits -- which, when used in conjunction with baking soda, becomes a leavening agent by producing carbon dioxide gas (i.e., bubblesbubblesbubbles!). 

More About Cream of Tartar

(In case you hadn't had enough already)

• You can substitute 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar for 1 teaspoon baking powder.
• Add a pinch of cream of tartar to boiling vegetables to help them retain their bright, fresh color.

• A pinch of cream of tartar also helps stabilize whipped cream to prevent it from deflating.
• Make colorful, edible play dough!
• Make metal polish: Add water to make a paste to polish stainless steel and aluminum. This also removes scratches on white bowls and plates caused by knives and forks.
• Copper polish: Add lemon juice in a 1:1 mixture. Rub on, rinse off.
• Porcelain sink, tub, toilet scrub: Add distilled white vinegar in a 1:1 solution.
• All-purpose scrub: Add distilled white vinegar in a 4:1 solution (i.e., 1 cup vinegar to 1/4 cup cream of tartar). This also cleans stainless steel sinks like nobody's business.